


the depth and breadth and height

by possibilityleft



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Extra Treat, Gen, Platonic Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 12:46:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5049136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilityleft/pseuds/possibilityleft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone is killing the soulmark detectives in New York, and Joan and Sherlock are going to figure out why, even if neither of them are quite sure they believe in soulmarks at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the depth and breadth and height

**Author's Note:**

  * For [galfridian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/galfridian/gifts).



> Although primarily set during Season 1 of the show, there are some major spoilers in here for Season 2.

**1.**

Every day it was something else. Today, when Joan came downstairs, Sherlock demanded, "Tell me what you know about soulmarks."

Maybe she was getting used to him; she hardly blinked.

"Despite a large amount of research, medical science has little explanation for the phenomenon. It's quite possible that our culture has built up a mythology around these shared birthmarks that accounts for the fact that those marriages or relationships seem to be more successful than average. Most people have a birthmark that they consider to be their soulmark, and in some countries, a set of soulmarks is considered the same as a marriage contract. In other countries, soulmarks are burned away not long after birth. Recent research suggests that most people believe their marks are valid, even though less than ten percent of people ever meet their hypothetical soulmate."

Sherlock squinted at her. "You don't believe in them."

Joan hesitated. "My parents are soulmates," she said.

"That must have been in your father's favor when he asked your mother to forgive his infidelities," Sherlock said.

Joan didn't rise to the bait. He was going to stop fighting her one of these days, when he realized she was on his team. At least, Joan hoped he would. 

*

**2.**

Joan didn't tell him, like she would have, later in their relationship: not her mother and her stepfather -- her mother and her biological father. It was difficult to believe in soulmarks after she found that out. Joan had quit searching for someone who had a matching mark curled around their left shoulder, and it made her relationships better. Her mother was very happy with her stepfather, and Joan had been very happy with Ty, for a while.

*

**3.**

"Why are you asking?" Joan said instead.

"Murders caused by romantic entanglement are depressingly frequent, even among the soulmate set. Passion is universal. The soulmate quest is nonetheless considered to be quite noble," he said, looking like he'd bitten down on something sour.

"I'm aware. It doesn't sound like something you'd be interested in," she said.

A smile broke across his face and then receded. "Not at all. But someone is murdering soulmark private detectives, and the captain asked me to take a look, figure out who just hates love that much. Get your coat."

Joan sighed. "I haven't even had breakfast."

"We can grab coffee on the way. The blood's still cooling on the last one. If we don't leave immediately, then Gregson's useless detectives will no-doubtedly be stomping all over it within the hour," he said. "Chop chop!"

She rolled her eyes as he harried her up the stairs. She slammed the bedroom door in his face firmly so she could get dressed in privacy. When she emerged a few minutes later he was standing by the front door, hunching down into his coat .

"Are you coming or not?" he asked impatiently.

*

**4.**

Much later, Joan would ask -- "Did your soulmarks match?"

"Her skin was completely unblemished," he would answer, his voice hardly wavering. "I was very thorough. I imagine she had it removed."

*

**5.**

They caught the man three days later after a tense standoff. He'd hired a soulmark detective to find his match, and the detective came back with the name of a woman who had been married for almost a year. The man asked to meet her, but she declined to run away with him. He had employed more detectives, but none of their answers satisfied him.

It was no crime of passion, killing the detectives. He planned the deaths out quite far in advance, gathering supplies and making lists. During the day, he worked as a software engineer.

The woman survived. Joan and Sherlock had made sure of that. She didn't weep, either, when the police carried the killer out.

*

**6.**

Sherlock was constantly getting into scrapes, even now, years after they'd settled into their comfortable routine as consulting detectives for the NYPD. He still ran into danger head-first, trusting his own brain, and dear friends, to catch him.

"You should go to the hospital," Joan said, when he knocked on her door one morning at four a.m. and presented the long cut across the muscle of his back, weeping blood down his spine and into his pants. "What were you even doing?"

"You can sew it up just as well here," Sherlock said. "It was nearly time to wake you in any case. We've had a breakthrough. I didn't get attacked with a knife because I was on the wrong track."

He was high on the adrenaline still. "What happened?" Joan insisted, but she sat him down on the seat of her vanity and went into the bathroom for her supplies.

"Couldn't sleep. I was retracing the steps that I assumed the murderer had taken when he fled the Jeffries' house when I was rudely assaulted from behind. Big man, smelled like anise, wearing ripped blue jeans. He pushed me down, sliced me, and then fled quite quickly into the bushes. I called Marcus; he's on his way to the scene, but I doubt he'll find anything."

"Well, you're lucky. Looks like the knife grazed you for the most part, you heard him coming and started to turn?" she said, putting on the surgical gloves.

"Indeed. Not a very subtle murderer. I suppose he could have been your garden-variety mugger, but if so, he was a very bad one. No, I think we're making him nervous."

Joan hadn't practiced medicine for years, but stitches were easy. She disinfected the area and went to work carefully, already plotting to drop him off at a doctor's office to get some antibiotics, just in case.

Her fingers traced over the slash across his shoulder tattoo, hesitating, tracing a shape. She'd seen his back dozens, perhaps hundreds of times before, so she wasn't sure why it had caught her eye today. 

"Is there something wrong, Watson?"

Watson went back to her sewing. "Sherlock," she said, "did you get this tattoo to cover something?" She couldn't bear to ask the real question, not yet.

His shoulders tensed as if he were going to shrug. She pushed them down with her free hand.

"I've gotten my tattoos for a variety of reasons. That one in particular does cover a silly birthmark on my back. Is that important?"

Watson said nothing. Again, she traced the shape with her finger, barely brushing his skin. Then she finished her work and cut the thread.

"Not really," she said, knowing she'd hesitated too long. Sherlock's phone was ringing. He fumbled it out of his pocket and held it to his ear. Now that the stitches were done she swiped at the blood on his back with the towel she'd gotten from the bathroom cabinet. He was quite flexible, but probably not enough to get all of it.

It wasn't a long conversation. Soon Sherlock was stabbing the goodbye button triumphantly and turning to her, asking her to follow him into another case.

"Let me throw on some clothes," she said, wiping her tired eyes. When she came down the stairs a few minutes later, he'd found a fresh shirt, loose enough not to irritate his stitches. He was holding the door open, eager as a bloodhound on the scent, and Joan followed him out into the early morning light.


End file.
